WHAT have you finished reading recently? I just finished reading Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty, and a review will go live at 11 AM today.
WHAT are you reading now? I’m halfway through Fenway 1912, a history of the Red Sox’s first year in their new stadium. I’m also closing in on the final hour of Baseball when the Grass Was Real, an oral history of baseball in the 1930s & 1940s.
WHAT are you reading next?
And now, this week’s prompt from Long and Short Videos: our favorite TV shows and why. Hmm, boy. This…..is going to be difficult.
(1) Boy Meets World. I grew up with this show. I lived vicariously through Cory, Shawn, and Topanga. William Daniels is my inner-ideal for mentor.
(2) Star Trek Deep Space Nine. My first experience with Star Trek was the original from the 1960s, which I experienced in a hospital room in the early 1990s. After the hospital I could only experience Star Trek intermittently, in weird ways: I’d watch VHS tapes or motel room episodes, or novels. It wasn’t until Deep Space Nine that I got to experience Star Trek properly. Perhaps that explains my long attachment to it, but it helps that DS9 was a wholly different show from any Trek before or since: focused on a community and character drama, rather than the Thing of the Week. Deep Space Nine was not merely entertainment. It was provoking and serious. There’s a reason my Star Trek merch is divided 2/3rds between DS9 stuff and Strange New Worlds stuff. (SNW is the third.)
Deep Space Nine is also responsible for me discovering Frank Sinatra and swing music in general.
(3) Home Improvement. I absolutely loved Tim Allen in this, and to this day I have to stop myself from yelling “DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?” when the library is about to close. Agh, agh, agh.
(4) How I Met Your Mother. As a Millennial, this was my Friends.
(5) The Sopranos.
In the early 2000s, I became interested in The Mafia. Once I started working, I started renting Sopranoes VHS tapes and DVDs. It took me ten years to finish the series, but ever since then it’s been playing on auto-repeat in my head. The acting in this show was incredible by itself, but the writing! Madonne!
(6) Little Mosque on the Prairie. This early WoT Canadian comedy focused on a Muslim community in the middle of the Canadian prairies. It’s a bit like Vicar of Dibley in being a “small town religious comedy”, but the main characters are actually religious and not Anglicans. Wonderful characters. I’m rewatching it for the 3rd or 4th time, this time with the ladyfriend. I began watching…um, unofficial versions of this on YT as it aired and bought all the DVD sets.
(7) FIREFLY FIREFLY FIREFLY FIREFLY FIREFLY FIREFLY
(8) The Office.
Yes, I like The Office. Yes, I’ve watched it on repeat for ~20 years. Yes, quoting it randomly is part of my personality.
(9) Breaking Bad. I refused to watch this on principle but bowed to peer pressure after a while. Ever since then, Breaking Bad has been a constant.
(10) Better Call Saul. Bob Odenkirk is an absolute beast.
(11) I feel weird only having one Star Trek show on here, so here’s Strange New Worlds.
Reading Freely 
Some great shows, there Stephen. I like just about every show on your list, especially DS9. I still watch the Christmas episodes of Home Improvement every year. I’ve not seen Little Mosque on the Prairie, but I loved The Vicar of Dibley, so if it’s anything like that, I’ll check it out. 🙂
Definitely agree on Firefly. *Great* show…..
DS9 might be my least favourite ST variant. I grew up with ST:OS so that has a special place in my heart. TNG was pretty hit and miss although its heart was (mostly) in the right place. I never really ‘took’ to DS9 and thought it was either messy or bland on the whole – except for a (very) few stand out episodes. I (mainly) liked Voyager although that had its rough patches too. Enterprise did have some *serious* wobbles but was really starting to find its feet when it got cancelled. I’ve only seen clips of Discovery (and Picard) and was seriously underwhelmed. Likewise I’ve only seen clips of Brave New Worlds but was very impressed by what I’ve seen.
I’ve made it through one season of DSC and half of PIC’s third season. That one is slightly redeemed by the heavy presence of the original cast, but it wasn’t enough to make me finish.
DS9 was groundbreaking in that it was more about steady character development and longer story arcs. Unfortunately that hurt it during syndication.
Boy Meets World I forgot about that one I bet my teenage girls would like that one I gotta tell them to look it up and check it out. Breaking Bad is a good one also.
Sounds great!
Last book I finished: Un animal sauvage, by Joël Dicker
Am reading: La Pipe de Maigret, by Georges Simenon
Am listening to: Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake
Next: Cyborg Fever, by Laurie Sheck
Entangled Life is on my interest list!
It’s really an amazing book!
This is a great list! My daughter randomly decided she wanted to watch How I Met Your Mother, so we watched it together and, despite how awful they all were at times, it was a great show.
Firefly though! “Wash, tell me I’m pretty.” I really need to watch that again, soon.
Here is my post.
TOOL TIME! 😀
(Which is also what my dad would always refer to the show itself as, because he could never remember the actual name, LOL)
The chokehold JTT had on the girls in my class …
I remember! I wonder if he tired of acting — I saw him in a couple of movies (Jack Frost & I’ll Be Home for Christmas) but not since then.
I also adore Boy Meets World, what an excellent show that has a special place in my heart. Mr. Feeny is such a great role model. I enjoyed How I Met Your Mother but I hated the ending 😦 lol. And Of course Firefly! 🖤
Which ending did you hate? The DVD set had an alternate ending 😉 The casting for Traci was PERFECT.
Oh wait, what? I just watched it on tv I had no clue there was an alternate ending. Just looked it up and now I have watched the ending I wanted so many years later haha! I did like Tracy a lot and wanted a happy ending with her lol. 😀 Thanks for that! 😀
You’re welcome! I lost TV access to HIMYM after the switch from analog to digital, so I watched most of the later seasons via DVD.
Oh I see that makes sense, so no wonder you knew about that alternate ending! That was a fun little discovery! 😀
Yes, I like How I Met Your Mother. Barney was my favorite. I only really like certain episodes like The Naked Man.